I’m with you, JT.
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I absolutely agree that the band captured lightning in a bottle with this track.
I always like hearing technical mistakes in legendary tracks (plenty out there) because it’s a great reminder of how performance and vibe and magic will always be better than a perfect take.
I do, however, have to link this article about the history of that song.
There’s a very amazing and rich history around the origin of this song and this particular rendition in particular.
It’s a cover of a Bob Dylan recording which itself was a rip off of another folk singers version of this old traditional folk song.
Kudos to The Animals for shredding this killer and immortal version, but they didn’t write it or come up with these chords and this rhythm for the old standard.
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I agree, Gio. And I misstated that The Animals wrote this song. They didn’t and I’ve revised my original post to that effect.
I know it was a cover of a Dylan-take folk song. What I meant was they created this rendition that reached millions of people around the world who had most likely never heard an earlier version.
And, as per the article you cited:
The Animals version was played in 6/8 meter, unlike the 4/4 of most earlier versions.
What resulted is a piece of rock history.
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I’ve always like this song, the theatrics of it is really cool, I think it’s great, but playing bass to it was hard and lead to saturation from listening to it so many times…. The course lesson with it was easy, no problem but the song not so much, specially when the organ solo kicks in, I personally cannot hear anything but the organ, I got totally lost, the bass part doesn’t feel in sync with everything else, its like being thrown in the middle of the ocean during a storm… so I get flashbacks now when I hear this song
Maybe in a year or two when I’m a better player I could enjoy it, for now, I stay away
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So i dig that it’s musical history, and i would certainly never want to disrespect the music. It just wasnt my thing. But that actually means nothing in the grand scheme of learning. I’ve played lots of stuff that i don’t like.
When i was a young man, that was all that was on for music. I lived in the Midwest. We had farm reports, public radio, both kinds of music ( country AND western! ) and classic rock. Deep purple was considered heavy, and they were. My mind was blown the first time i heard meatloaf screaming out bat out of hell…
No disrespect to the musicians, or their ability-they all got me flat smoked for sure.
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I hear you and I agree completely that not every person is going to click with every song. There are genres and songs I don’t like even a tiny bit, but learning them is learning, and the more wrinkles I can make in my brain by picking up new techniques, the better.
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Woody Guthrie used to play this song, and that’s probably where Dylan picked it up. Woody was a huge influence on that generation of songwriters.
I think it’s brilliant, and the start of Eric Burdons career who did so much later on (low rider, why can’t we be friends)
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Didn’t Alan Price (keyboard player) claim writing credits for this song?
I remember seeing an interview with Eric Burdon saying that Price basically kept the royalties from this track and this helped lead to the break up of the band.
I know that it was a folksong long before The Animals released it and makes it all the more baffling as to why one person should walk out with the lion’s share of the royalties
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Maybe i missed it but anyone post the tab for this song ?
Rich
According to the Wikipedia article:
Arranging credit went only to Alan Price. According to Burdon, this was simply because there was insufficient room to name all five band members on the record label, and Alan Price’s first name was first alphabetically. However, this meant that only Price received songwriter’s royalties for the hit, a fact that has caused bitterness among the other band members ever since.
Dylan royally ripped off Dave Van Ronk, who played this song regularly for years.
Again, according to the Wikipedia article:
Van Ronk arrangement
In late 1961, Bob Dylan recorded the song for his debut album, released in March 1962. That release had no songwriting credit, but the liner notes indicate that Dylan learned this version of the song from Dave Van Ronk. In an interview for the documentary No Direction Home , Van Ronk said that he was intending to record the song and that Dylan copied his version. Van Ronk recorded it soon thereafter for the album Just Dave Van Ronk .
I had learned it sometime in the 1950s, from a recording by Hally Wood, the Texas singer and collector, who had got it from an Alan Lomax field recording by a Kentucky woman named Georgia Turner. I put a different spin on it by altering the chords and using a bass line that descended in half steps—a common enough progression in jazz, but unusual among folksingers. By the early 1960s, the song had become one of my signature pieces, and I could hardly get off the stage without doing it.
Then, one evening in 1962, I was sitting at my usual table in the back of the Kettle of Fish, and Dylan came slouching in. He had been up at the Columbia studios with John Hammond, doing his first album. He was being very mysterioso about the whole thing, and nobody I knew had been to any of the sessions except Suze, his lady. I pumped him for information, but he was vague. Everything was going fine and, “Hey, would it be okay for me to record your arrangement of ‘House of the Rising Sun?’” Oh, shit. “Jeez, Bobby, I’m going into the studio to do that myself in a few weeks. Can’t it wait until your next album?” A long pause. “Uh-oh”. I did not like the sound of that. “What exactly do you mean, ‘Uh-oh’?” “Well”, he said sheepishly, “I’ve already recorded it”.
Josh has them posted on BassBuzz in the course extras section.
You can also find this and all the other 50 song info (PDFs, backing tracks) on the BassBuzz discord server. The FAQ thread for the challenge has instructions on how to get to.
Wow, this is going to be the hardest one yet as many of you have said. I’m sort of in the middle of definitely not loving it but also not hating it. We’ll see how I feel after I learn it. I have never learned a song in 6/8 before and it’s gonna be hard to memorize so let’s see what happens …
It’s tricky with the timing changes but just take it in parts and work each part into the next.
This is a good one to take your time on yo learn what Josh intends to teach with it.
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My praise group learned the version with Amazing Grace lyrics…….should have seen the heads of the congregation snap and stare at us (Catholic church) when we played the intro!
But, afterward we got a ton of “We loved that!” when Mass ended.
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This is submission #7 of the BassBuzz.com 50 song challenge.
This submission was tricky. It’s not a long song but the bass never stops. In previous songs the playing parts were shorter, or broken up. Also the changes were numerous so memorizing this one was difficult so I had to read along. Hope that’s OK!
There were a couple of gaffs and missed timing, notes…but overall I’m happy with it, On to the next challenge!
I was all set to pass over the Hank Williams #8 song, but I just played it on my Uke Bass and, well, In the immortal words of the Staples Button “That was easy”. I guess I’ll give it a go.
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Sure is!
This is about improving your playing, not memorization improvement. If that’s what this was I’d be toast! Sight reading is actually a hard skill to develop and this helps you with that too!
You did a great job on this (yes there are minor blips here and there) overall and tone is great.
I don’t think any of us liked this tune. It’s boring and messy, repetitive but changey, the feel of the tune is a hard one. You did great!
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Thanks, John! I don’t mind the song, but damn, those changes!
I’m glad memorizing isn’t part of the show, but I’m trying to anyway. It will make me better at playing with others and I want a bank of songs in my brain that I can break out when I want to.
Not this time, though.
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Ya, I only memorize the tunes I want to, then sadly forget them as I’m not playing them over and over after recording them.
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Nice job @groaner! This one was a hurdle for a lot of us.
I feel you on this. I eventually memorized the chord progression, but couldn’t track all the different ways he subdivided the rhythms. I opted for the “play more notes when it gets louder” approach rather than going note for note.
Go for it, good song to practice slow tempo patience, and 3/4 rhythm.
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